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Concern widens in Europe over CIA prisoner flights
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-17 09:14
Concern widened in a clutch of countries in Europe and north Africa over the
use of their airports by US intelligence officials to transfer suspected Islamic
extremists.
Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain
and Sweden have all been linked to the CIA's use of planes for the transit, or
rendition, of prisoners allegedly subjected to extra-judicial detention and
torture.
In Oslo, the government summoned a US embassy official over the landing in
the Norwegian capital on July 20 of a plane which according to media reports was
one of those the CIA used to transport the suspected extremists.
According to a foreign ministry spokesman, the official "denied that the
plane in question had been used by the American authorities at the time."
The Swedish government similarly demanded "complete information" from its
civil aviation authorities after the TT news agency reported at least two
suspected CIA planes had landed at Swedish airports over the past three years
and that one of them was used at the US base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba, probably
for transporting prisoners.
In Morocco, Le Journal weekly on Saturday cited a former agent with the
national DST intelligence service as saying the country had directly
participated in the CIA operation with at least 10 flights carrying prisoners
landing in Morocco between December 2002 and February this year.
In Spain, El Pais cited a report by the civil guard, which has military as
well as police functions, as saying the prisoner transport planes made at least
10 secret stopoffs at Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands between January
22, 2004 and January 17, 2005. The Canary Islands might also be concerned by the
affair.
That news prompted Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso to say Tuesday that
if the reports were true, it could damage relations between Madrid and
Washington as such flights would be "intolerable in every sense."
Spain's United Left opposition party has demanded that Alonso appear before
parliament to explain the situation along with Alberto Saiz, head of national
intelligence bureau CNI.
Late Wednesday a spokesman for the prime minister's office said Foreign
Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos would appear before the Congress at an
unspecified date to answer questions about the alleged CIA stopovers.
Portuguese Defense Minister Luis Amado, responding to questions from
journalists, said the government had no "elements which can support" local media
reports that CIA planes had landed near Lisbon.
The US Senate has asked the CIA to inform it as to the precise nature of its
prisoner transport operations.
According to the Washington Post, the CIA has placed more than 100 illegally
held suspects in a secret prison network in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern
Europe since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Following that report the CIA called on the Justice Department to hold an
inquiry into the "information leaks" on the prisons.
A series of denials on the existence of the prisons for top Al-Qaeda suspects
has come from Thailand and eastern European US allies, including Bulgaria,
Hungary, Poland and Romania.
Only the Czech Republic has gone as far as saying it turned down a US demand
to house prisoners previously held at Guantanamo on its soil.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has tried in vain for
more than two years to persuade Washington to give it access to those held
secretly abroad "in the context of the war on terrorism."
An investigation is under way in Germany over the February 2003 kidnap in
Italy by CIA agents of Abou Omar, a former imam who was allegedly brought to the
US military base at Ramstein in southwestern Germany prior to his being taken to
Egypt.
In Italy on Friday, the Milan public prosecutor demanded the extradition of
22 CIA agents believed to have been involved in the abduction of Omar, the
subject of an Italian anti-terrorist investigation.
The Italian government has demanded "the full respect of Italian sovereignty"
in the affair.
UN special rapporteur into torture, Manfred Nowak, has called on the EU and
the Council of Europe to "hold high level inquiries" and the council says one is
to follow.
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